Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The Industrial Revolution brought significant
Speaker 1: advancements to Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including
Speaker 1: chemical manufacturing, the steam engine, and machine tools what we
Speaker 1: would call power tools today. As new industries rose, existing
Speaker 1: industries were also upgraded. One of the most significant and
Speaker 1: the oldest, was beer. The actual method of brewing and
Speaker 1: storing beer hadn't changed much over the past few hundred years,
Speaker 1: but as with any period of change, competition bred growth. Literally,
Speaker 1: London brewery started building their own cisterns and bats larger
Speaker 1: and larger. Capacities quickly grew from two hundred barrels worth
Speaker 1: of beer all the way up to nearly ten times
Speaker 1: that amount, large enough for one craft brewery to actually
Speaker 1: host a dinner party for one hundred guests inside a
Speaker 1: single empty vat. Of course, revolutions don't just happen. They're
Speaker 1: built up over long periods of trial and error, and
Speaker 1: when you're racing competitors to build the largest beer vats
Speaker 1: in the city, errors are bound to crop up. It
Speaker 1: was a Monday evening in October in eighteen fourteen when
Speaker 1: it happened a leak had sprung at the Henry mow
Speaker 1: and Company Brewery in central London. Well leak might be
Speaker 1: an understatement. A vat holding thirty five hundred barrels or
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty five thousand liters of beer, burst
Speaker 1: wide open. The del uge was so powerful that it
Speaker 1: also knocked over a number of casks of porter, resulting
Speaker 1: in an ocean of ale to totaling over one point
Speaker 1: four seven million liters. The flood ripped through one of
Speaker 1: the brewery's twenty five foot brick walls like it was paper,
Speaker 1: and collapsed part of the roof. Streets became rivers, and
Speaker 1: nearby houses were obliterated. On the first floor of one
Speaker 1: such house, a mother and her young daughter were at
Speaker 1: tea when a wave of beer swept them away, killing
Speaker 1: them instantly. Others in the vicinity were carried off in
Speaker 1: the flood or crushed to death by debris. One major
Speaker 1: problem contributing to the higher death toll and complicated rescue
Speaker 1: efforts was the town's flatness, which prevented the beer from
Speaker 1: draining away. Instead, it simply poured into basements and washed
Speaker 1: out roadways. The current of the flood was so strong
Speaker 1: that it dragged debris from the homes it had destroyed,
Speaker 1: which created obstacles for rescuers trying to reach their victims.
Speaker 1: By the time rescuers were able to reach the areas
Speaker 1: hit the hardest, it was already too late. Bodies began
Speaker 1: floating up from the ruins around midnight, including that of
Speaker 1: a woman who had been in her backyard at the
Speaker 1: time and had been buried under the wreck of her home.
Speaker 1: All told, eight people perished in the flood. As you
Speaker 1: should know by now, the story doesn't end there. A
Speaker 1: week after the disaster, the brewery was taken to court
Speaker 1: to determine the cause of the accidents. A brewery employee
Speaker 1: by the name of George Crick came forward with his
Speaker 1: account of what had caused the flood. George had noticed
Speaker 1: one of the iron hoops holding the vat together had
Speaker 1: fallen off. Now I know what you're thinking, Why didn't
Speaker 1: George just picked the hoop back up and grab some
Speaker 1: tools and put it right back where it belonged. Right? Well,
Speaker 1: these weren't the usual metal hoops you might find around
Speaker 1: pickle barrels. Each of these weighed roughly one metric ton.
Speaker 1: George and the owners had determined that the rivets holding
Speaker 1: the hoop to the barrel had simply worn out over time, and,
Speaker 1: like the button on a pair of pants two sizes
Speaker 1: too small, they popped out. The weight of the liquid
Speaker 1: inside of too much for the vat to handle, and
Speaker 1: the rest, as they say, is history history, but also
Speaker 1: a tragedy. Lives were lost, homes were destroyed, businesses were closed, and,
Speaker 1: most tragic of all, even though the accident was a
Speaker 1: product of human error, the brewery got off without a hitch.
Speaker 1: In fact, a year later they managed to get the
Speaker 1: Crown to give them back the tax money they paid
Speaker 1: on the lost beer. The court might have called it
Speaker 1: an act of God, but looking back, I think a larger,
Speaker 1: more universal truth needs pointed out. However obvious it might be,
Speaker 1: some people just can't hold their liquor. They say, necessity
Speaker 1: is the mother of invention. When spears weren't enough to
Speaker 1: stop and end me, bows and arrows were created. When
Speaker 1: those outlived their usefulness, along came guns and rifles to
Speaker 1: get the job done. War transformed as weapons advanced, but
Speaker 1: one thing never changed the ingenuity of desperate men faced
Speaker 1: with impossible odds. That ingenuity was on full display during
Speaker 1: the American Civil War, when battles weren't just fought in
Speaker 1: fields and towns, but along coastlines and rivers. These waterways
Speaker 1: were used to transport supplies, ammunition, and even soldiers from
Speaker 1: one location to another. An army controlling the water could
Speaker 1: cripple the opposing forces access to necessary items such as
Speaker 1: food and medical equipment. The water was also used as
Speaker 1: a venue for surprise attacks. Soldiers marching near an enemy
Speaker 1: controlled waterway would often find themselves ambushed by waiting gunboats.
Speaker 1: Rivers and coastlines quickly became a crucial part of an
Speaker 1: army strategy, and if an enemy wanted a chance at survival,
Speaker 1: that had to either avoid the water entirely or use
Speaker 1: it to its advantage. It was at the height of
Speaker 1: the Civil War when such an advantage presented itself. A
Speaker 1: Union blockade had been stationed in the waters off Charleston,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, led by a steam powered sloop of war
Speaker 1: known as the Hughes Satonic. Armed with a dozen cannons,
Speaker 1: the Hughes Satonic was known for capturing Confederate ships like
Speaker 1: the four hundred ton iron hulled steamer the s S. Georgiana.
Speaker 1: The Confederacy needed to break up the blockade to open
Speaker 1: up Charleston shores, but to do so, the Hughes Satonic
Speaker 1: had to go. There was only one problem. The ship
Speaker 1: was five miles off the coast. Any opposing vessel launched
Speaker 1: from the shore, it would be seen immediately and destroyed.
Speaker 1: So the Confederate army had an outrageous idea. What if
Speaker 1: they attacked it from below. It took them two years
Speaker 1: of trial and error, but a submersible was finally developed
Speaker 1: that could carry eight men. They would travel beneath the
Speaker 1: water to the Hugh Satonic, where the men would detonate
Speaker 1: a tord pedo along the enemy's hull. Something to keep
Speaker 1: in mind, though, unlike our modern torpedoes that propelled themselves
Speaker 1: through the water, the Hunley carried what was known as
Speaker 1: a spar torpedo. It was basically a canister of explosive
Speaker 1: powder attached to the end of a long pole, which
Speaker 1: would be rammed into the opposing ship. On the night
Speaker 1: of February eighteen sixty four, the Hunley and its crew
Speaker 1: slipped into the waters off the coast of Charleston. Powered
Speaker 1: by hand crank, it glided towards the Housatonic, that explosive
Speaker 1: payload leading the charge about twenty ft ahead. Later, one
Speaker 1: of the Housatonic crew members would report that he had
Speaker 1: seen something strange in the water, something large and mysterious,
Speaker 1: but before he could alert his crewmates it was too late.
Speaker 1: The Hunley jab the Housatonic starboard side add about eight
Speaker 1: forty PM and made history. Those eight men had completed
Speaker 1: the first successful submarine attack on a warship. Five crew
Speaker 1: members aboard the Housatonic died as the ship sank, and
Speaker 1: if the story ended there, that alone would be enough
Speaker 1: to cement the Hunley spot in Civil War legend. But
Speaker 1: there was something else. According to initial reports, everything had
Speaker 1: gone swimmingly Nope, pun intended. I swear, the Housatonic had
Speaker 1: been destroyed and the Hunley had begun its return to base,
Speaker 1: except it never made it. The sub and all eight
Speaker 1: lives inside had been lost. Although for almost a century
Speaker 1: and a half no one was sure why. The mystery
Speaker 1: would remain unsolved until the mid nineteen nineties when the
Speaker 1: vessel was found at the bottom of Charleston's Outer Harbor
Speaker 1: in the summer of two thousand, marine archaeologists raised the
Speaker 1: Hunley from the depths and got to work restoring the vessel.
Speaker 1: Experts spent months cleaning up the hull before opening it
Speaker 1: to see what was inside. And that's when the end
Speaker 1: of one mystery led to the start of another. You see,
Speaker 1: the eight crew members hadn't gotten out after the torpedo detonated,
Speaker 1: A sad end to a daring operation, for sure, but
Speaker 1: that's not the crazy part. Upon opening up the hall
Speaker 1: a conservation experts noticed the crew had never even made
Speaker 1: any attempt to escape. There were no external injuries or
Speaker 1: signs of drowning the explosion. They believe it's simply been
Speaker 1: so strong that the lung and brain tissue of the
Speaker 1: men inside had been instantly obliterated. Sometimes you win and
Speaker 1: sometimes you lose, and sometimes apparently you do both. I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works, I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the world
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Speaker 1: H